Only a Few Will Decide on What Could Be a Big Shift for Britain

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Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon, the leaders of the Scottish National Party, in front of a sign indicating the date of Scotland's independence referendum outside Parliament in Edinburgh.CreditDavid Moir/Reuters

LONDON — President Obama has had his say, albeit couched in diplomatic caveats, and so, too, has J.K. Rowling, implying that her repertoire of wizards, villains and sundry spell-makers would also take a view if they could on Scotland’s independence.

But, as the days tick away toward a referendum on what Scots think about their future ties to the United Kingdom, three large groups of interested parties are conspicuously absent from the debate — the English, the Welsh and the (Northern) Irish.

On Sept. 18, people resident in Scotland and over the age of 16 will answer a simple question: “Should Scotland be an independent country?”

The consequences are potentially breathtaking: for the first time in 307 years, Scotland could break away; the United Kingdom could be not so united; Great Britain could be somewhat less great, geographically at least; Scotland could be free in a brave new world.

And yet the decision will be made by just a fraction of the people who stand to see their notions of national identity upended.

Since Scotland’s population is estimated at 5.2 million, voters among roughly one-twelfth of the British population of 62 million will determine whether Scotland — accounting for about a third of the British landmass — becomes a separate state.

By comparison, imagine Italy allowing Tuscany to secede, or Texas detaching itself from the United States, or Bavaria bidding auf Wiedersehen to Germany without the consent of the bulk of Italians, Americans or Germans.

“In all the complex changes leading to the Scottish bid for independence, the English have never been consulted,” the writer and philosopher Roger Scruton said earlier this year.

“When the Czechs and Slovaks achieved their amicable divorce it was by mutual agreement between elected politicians,” he said, referring to the demise of Czechoslovakia in 1993 in what was known as the Velvet Divorce. “What is so different about Scotland that it decides everything for itself?”

The answer lies in the process known as devolution that accelerated a degree of autonomy for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in the 1990s, and in the steady rise of the independence-minded Scottish National Party, which won an outright majority in the Scottish regional elections in 2011.

From then on, the clamor for a referendum accelerated, culminating in an agreement in 2012, when Prime Minister David Cameron abandoned his insistence that only the British Parliament had the power to organize a referendum.

Since then, polls have shown a narrowing majority in favor of rejecting independence, but the race is too close for Mr. Cameron to ignore in his effort to keep Britain united. At the same time, other surveys — the most recent this week — have seemed to underscore an abiding interest among the 53 million English in maintaining the union.

Last week in Brussels, President Obama departed from America’s vaunted neutrality in the debate to say that, while it was “up to the people of Scotland” to determine their destiny, “we obviously have a deep interest in making sure that one of the closest allies we will ever have remains a strong, robust, united and effective partner.”

For her part, Ms. Rowling said, “my guess is that if we vote to stay, we will be in the heady position of the spouse who looked like walking out, but decided to give things one last go.”

The vote will be closely watched by other Europeans eyeing independence — the Catalans in Spain, for instance. It might even inspire thoughts further afield — in the Middle East, perhaps, where the debate over a two-state solution is far more intractable.

Ms. Rowling, a resident of Edinburgh who has lived in Scotland for 21 years, tended to cast the outcome more in the language of domestic strife. “If we leave, there will be no going back,” she said, adding: “I doubt that an independent Scotland will be able to bank on its ex-partners’ fond memories of the old relationship once we’ve left.”